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I transferred some money on Thursday from one uk bank account to another at another institution. Took less time than to log on to the second bank to confirm it had gone through.

Very US-centric. Elsewhere in the world "wire transfers" - transferring money from one bank to another happens more or less instantly.

When I pay myself from my business account and it happens just about instantly. Max I've ever waited was like 15 minutes.

Using Transferwise, a friend from Australia paid me back in the UK and it went through in like 1 hour.

Isn't Transferwise basically just using their accounts in both banks to achieve that, and rebalancing them later (if necessary)? That's not really representative of the performance of the banking system, is it?

For the international part, yes, but still the Me > transferwise and transferwise > friend transfers are "wire transfers" and both of them happen fast enough for the whole transaction to be completed in just a few hours.

Not necessarily, in Europe.

Many electronic bank transfers are approximately instant.

Sure, if you don’t factor in the conversion to and from money that can be used to buy groceries and petrol.